At the beginning of the 1990s many Western firms entered Eastern and Central Europe (ECE) hurriedly, without thinking about the complexities associated with this region. Many promising business ideas failed due to lack of knowledge about the local environment, including social, cultural, political and human resource related issues.

Transformations of Strategic Alliances in Emerging Markets: Volume I, deals with changes in strategic alliances in the complex settings of European emerging markets. It includes 40 years’ worth of data in its in-depth study of the changes in education, networks, work performance, and environmental factors in European transition region.

This book explores China’s policy towards the European Union, using the case study of four member states from Central Europe: Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. Gabriela Pleschová documents China’s strategic approach to engaging with these countries bilaterally and multilaterally, through intensified diplomatic and soft-power campaigns, upgrading them to strategic partners, offering loans and promising investments.

The Central and Eastern European Markets covers a variety of business topics dealing with Central and Eastern Europe and offers a unique picture of these new markets. Chapters contain accurate information on joint ventures, market entry strategies for Central and Eastern Europe, financing for activities in Eastern Europe, and assessing the Ukraine as a market. With direct experience of these business issues, the contributing authors explore these specific topics: how the Czechoslovak telecommunications system was upgraded through a joint venture entry and expansion decisions made by Western firms in the Ukraine and ways in which firms use relationships in the home and host market to reduce the risks of strategic investment decisions investment patterns, strategic market characteristics, and resulting entry strategies of Western firms active in Eastern Europe since the fall of the Iron Curtain macro changes taking place in Hungary, Poland, and Bulgaria and changing market environments specific to each country development trends in the marketing environment in Eastern Europe, options for market entry, and favored market penetration strategies The Central and Eastern European Markets is an ideal source for detailed information needed by students researching business issues in these emerging markets. Professionals planning to enter or seeking to improve their market position in these regions can find specific business-related information and experience in this stimulating volume.

As China rises as an economic and an international power, new relationships are being forged with all areas of the world including Central and Eastern Europe. This book explores how this relationship is developing. It considers how China's links with Central and Eastern Europe fit in to China's overall international relations strategies. It looks at economic and trade ties, diplomatic initiatives and the role of the European Union, and examines China's bilateral relations with the different states of the region. These relationships are particularly interesting because before the end of communism in Eastern Europe China had many direct links with the countries of the region.